Page 225 - Demo

“Heavenly Father” - to use the evangelistic expression.221In this respect, God is infinitely more beneficent thanan earthly father is. As regards the second name in the formula, “the Son,” one is at a loss to know who orwhat this “son” is. Whose son? If God be rightly addressed “Father,” then one is curious, inquisitive, and anxiousto know which of His innumerable “sons” is intendedin the baptismal formula. Jesus (pbuh) taught us to pray “Our Father who art in heaven.” If we are all His sons in the sense of His creatures, then the mention of the word “son” in the formula becomes somehow senseless and even ridiculous. We know that the name “the Sonof Man” -or “Barnasha”- is mentioned eighty-three times in the discourses of Jesus (pbuh) . The Quran never calls Jesus (pbuh) “the son of man” but always “the sonof Mary.” He could not call himself “the son of man” because he was only “the son of woman.” There is no getting away from the fact. You may make him “the son of God” as you foolishly do, but you can’t make him “the son of man” unless you believe him to be the offspring of Joseph or someone else, and consequently fasten on to him the taint of illegitimacy.I don’t know exactly how, whether through intuition, inspiration, or dream, I am taught and convinced that the second name in the formula is an ill-fated corruption of “the Son of Man,” viz. the Barnasha of Daniel(vii), and therefore Ahmad “the Periqlytos” (Paraclete) of St. John’sGospel.As to the Holy Spirit in the formula, it is not a person or an individualspirit, but an agency,force, energy of God with which a man is born or converted into the religion and knowledge of the One God.